Chirps from Center Ice

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If the Penguins lose out on a playoff spot in a month or an East Division Championship by one point, they will know exactly where to drive to find it.

That location is the Utica Memorial Auditorium. With 7.2 seconds left and the Comets net minder pulled, Utica scores on Peter Mannino to tie the game and go on to win in the shootout Friday night.

Okay. The Penguins lick their wounds over the border, and hand Hamilton a 4-2 loss on Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon in Toronto, the roles of Friday were reversed.

Ol’ buddy Trevor Smith picked Scott Harrington’s pocket as the Penguins defenseman was exiting the zone. We saw first hand last season what Trevor Smith does with time and space. He does not miss. 3-2 Marlies late.

Wilkes-Barre, in scramble mode, later pull starting goalie Jeff Deslauriers for the extra attacker. Andrew Ebbett, cool as a cucumber, makes a blind cross crease pass to Nick Drazenovic who buries it to tie the game at three again.

Overtime proved uneventful, and the Penguins get goals from Tom Kostopoulos, Drazenovic and Ebbett and skate out of Canada winners 4-3 and back to the top of the East Division in a tie with the Norfolk Admirals, after the Binghamton Senators coughed up another late lead to the Syracuse Crunch in Central New York by a score of 4-3 as well. The B-Sens have lost six straight.

Lineup wise, Mike Carman was out and is day to day with a “needs to be evaluated” upper body injury. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin, coming off of injury, was given the day off. Anton Zlobin and Barry Goers filled in respectively.

Drew MacIntyre was in net for the Toronto Marlies, an extremely tough nut to crack as MacIntyre leads or is at the top of just about every statistical goaltending category in the AHL.

Scott Harrington scored this fluky goal to put the Pens up 1-0 late in the first.

Then the Penguins took the second period over, outshooting the Marlies 19-4 in the period. Toronto got tremendous goaltending by Drew MacIntyre which seemed to have glue on his jersey as everything stuck to him.

The only blemish was a Jerry D’Amigo pick off of a Wilkes-Barre D to D pass while the Pens were on a power play. D’Amigo passed to Kenny Ryan who whipped one in from between the rings to tie the game at one.

But Wilkes-Barre’s inability to score on a power play, all eight of them, proved to be the difference in why this game was not a Wilkes-Barre blowout.

Finally Anton Zlobin crashed the net late in the second and pushed the Penguins ahead 2-1. It was an earned goal for Wilkes-Barre, who seemingly did everything but score in this period.

The third period was a role reversal for both teams seeing Toronto outshoot the Penguins 13-5. Toronto gets a power play in the third period in what seemed like forever for them and Spencer Abbott makes the Penguins pay. Jeff Deslauriers was screened badly.

I really wrote this post game recap with the best stuff, which was the last stuff to happen in the game, first. Go back to the top and look again, if you haven’t. Ha.

Standings: Norfolk 72 — Penguins 72 — Binghamton 71 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse 55

Conference: 1) MCH (86) 2) SPR (78) 3) NOR (72) 4) STJ (76) 5) WBS (72) 6) PRO (72) 7) BNG (71) 8) ALB (70)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were off tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Penguins will probably get a few much needed days off and will have a full week of practice to prepare for an important weekend with Hamilton and Norfolk. Both dangerous games for the Pens and here is why. Look past the Bulldogs to focus on the Admirals who own the Mohegan Sun Arena as of late. Lose to the Bulldogs and then to the Admirals. Binghamton finds its sea legs and a bunch of other teams win and Wilkes-Barre may be on the outside looking in again. That’s why it’s a dangerous weekend.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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Penguins with a much needed 4-2 win in Hamilton tonight. Your best players need to be your best players. Andrew Ebbett is certainly one of them. His 2-1-3 tonight and Wilkes-Barre’s bend-but-not-break defense in the third period help the Pens skate out of the Canadian version of the Steel City on a Saturday night.

How about Peter Mannino? As the games go by the Wilkes-Barre goal crease looks firmer and firmer. Only three goals allowed on this road trip (I don’t think they count shootout goals scored in goals against average) and some stability returning to the crease.

Mannino opposed Robert Mayer. The Pens scratched Barry Goers for Nick D’Agostino and Anton Zlobin for Adam Payerl.

First Period: Balanced period for both teams. Shots were 10-9. One of those for Hamilton went in when born set-up man, Martin St. Pierre assisted on a Gabriel Dumont goal late in the third.

Second Period: Pens had a carryover power play from the first. They must have spent the entire first intermission talking about it and drawing up a play as Andrew Ebbett got his first of the night to tie the game at 1-1.

Then, a Marty St. Pierre hook at 2:18. Penguins power play. :03 later, on a face-off win from Ebbett, Tom Kostopoulos whips one home for a 2-1 Penguins lead.

Later, Denver Manderson stuffs in a puck on the post to put the Pens ahead 3-1.

Much needed shot of offense for the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins, who only had one goal to show for the road trip when stepping on the FirstOntario Centre ice for the second period.

Third Period: Mike Blunden scores on a power play and it was a 3-2 game. Penguins were on their heels all game long, being outshot in the period 11-5 and it felt like it.

But time became the canine’s enemy. With Mayer pulled, Tom Kostopoulos intercepts a pass at center ice and skates in and dishes to Ebbett who deposits the empty net goal, sending the Penguins to victory.

Three Stars: 3) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, assist, +1) 2) Gabriel Dumont (goal, assist, even) 1) Andrew Ebbett (two goals, assist, +1)

Around the Division: Binghamton yaks up a 5-2 lead to lose in a shootout to the Utica Comets 6-5….Norfolk wins a wild one at Scope over Hershey 3-1…and Syracuse loses 5-3 to Rochester at home.

Standings: Norfolk 72 — Binghamton 71 — Penguins 70 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse 53

Conference: 1) MCH (84) 2) SPR (76) 3) NOR (72) 4) STJ (76) 5) BNG (71) 6) WBS (70) 7) PRO 70 8) ALB (69)

SendToNews Highlights: Are here.

Wheeling Update: Nailers win in overtime up in Elmira, 3-2.

Pens travel to Toronto for a 3 p.m. start. Gameday will be up here 11 a.m.

Don’t forget to set your clocks forward.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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Textbook Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins hockey tonight for 59:52 tonight.

Up 1-0 late in third, with under a minute left and Comets G Joacim Eriksson pulled, ol’ buddy Brandon DeFazio slips one under G Peter Mannino through a crowd. A lifeless Utica Comets crowd was alive.

Overtime solves nothing, probably the most even set between the two teams, with an even three shots each.

Then, in the bottom of the fifth round of the shootout, another ol’ buddy, this time Cal O’Reilly is staring down Peter Mannino. Neither team to this point scored a single shootout goal.

The Utica Comets were wearing green jerseys. It was an Irish themed night, in March, with St. Patricks day a week or so away.

So you can guess how this one ended up with O’Reilly, a common Irish name, on Mannino, whom I am assuming has some Italian in him, what with the vowel at the end of his name.

Utica wins 2-1 in the shootout. The Pens leave a huge point behind in the Mohawk Valley.

Four big things to takeaway from this game:

1) Brian Dumoulin was back from injury.
2) Chuck Kobasew was not on the trip. Russ Hryvnak tweeted that he will join the team next week.
3) Peter Mannino was great in net, but…
4) The Wilkes-Barre defense bottled up the Comets, allowing them only 10 shots through two periods.

Utica got a few more shots in the third, with the Pens playing prevent and the Comets in all out desperation mode.

Spencer Machacek took a nice pass from Jayson Megna, camped out behind Eriksson’s net and zipped one in 1:12 into the second period.

I wasn’t able to watch much of the game or listen, but it seemed that the Wilkes-Barre defense simply just limited Utica to not much and whatever they did, Mannino was there.

Three stars went went DeFazio (game tying goal) O’Reilly (shootout GWG) & Eriksson (32 saves on 33 shots) — laughable that Peter Mannino didn’t get a star but with the setup of a late game tying goal and shootout game winner and a goalie that stops all 5 shooters, I can see the reasoning.

Rest of the Division, Standings and Conference look like this:

Around the Division: Binghamton off. Hershey beats Norfolk 3-2 in regulation to end their six game losing streak. Syracuse loses 4-1 in Rochester.

Other Game of Note: Albany yaks up a 3-1 lead in Maine to the Pirates but manage to eke out a 4-3 shootout win.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 70 — Penguins 68 — Hershey 67 — Syracuse — 53

Conference: 1) MCH (82) 2) SPR (74) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (74) 5) NOR (70) 6) PRO (70) 7) ALB (69) 8) WBS (68)

Binghamton is in the cat bird seat, with at least a game in hand on everyone in the top eight.

Wheeling Update: Tom Kuhnhackl and Harrison Ruopp were sent to Wheeling this morning. The Nailers were in Reading tonight and lost 5-4. Kuhnhackl had a goal. Carter Rowney had a goal and an assist.

SendToNews Highlights: Aren’t up yet. I may check for a link tomorrow.

Pens travel to Hamilton for a date with the Bulldogs tomorrow at 7 p.m. Gameday for that will be up at 3 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Coming into the third period of today’s game in Atlantic City against the Albany Devils and trailing 1-0, I tweeted that the Penguins had been shutout for 107:36 since last scoring Tuesday night vs. Hershey.

Brendan Mikkelson’s shot from the blue line 13:33 later ended the shutout streak. Tom Kostopoulos’ power play goal about two and a half minutes later on the power play put the Penguins out front for good and they would win 2-1 over the Albany Devils.

Peter Mannino started the game for the Penguins, his last start? November 8 in Wilkes-Barre against these same Devils. A game where he would be pulled then later sent to Wheeling, where it took him two months to report.

Full circle for Mannino, who gave the Penguins tonight something which was really lacking, steady goaltending. The first time since February 7 in Portland that the Penguins only allow one goal to the opponent.

Now you might be thinking that the sorry Albany Devils aren’t really an offensive juggernaut and you couldn’t be more wrong. The Devils are a solid club that block shots and kill penalties and were prior to tonight a point ahead of the Penguins in the Conference.

That shot blocking by the Devils made for a pretty boring first forty minutes of play. The Penguins only had nine shots on goal through two periods. A Mike Sislo backhander on a rebound of a shot while the Devils were on a 5-on-3 in the first period was the only goal allowed by the Penguins tonight.

Keith Kinkaid manned the net for the Devils. The Penguins recalled Anton Zlobin and Tom Kuhnhackl today from Wheeling. Zlobin took warmups but was scratched.

With the score 1-0 to begin the third and with both teams seemingly in it, it boiled down to who wanted it more.

The Penguins found themselves on what ended up to be a 6:00 penalty kill. Andrew Ebbett would high stick Mattias Tedenby and draw blood for a 4:00 double minor penalty.

Mike Carman, in an attempt to backhand the puck down ice, puts it over the glass with :03 left on the Ebbett double minor.

Penguins kill it all off. Brendan Mikkelson waits, waits and waits then snaps a shot from the top of the blue line for a tie game. Later, Tom Kostopoulos scores his 20th goal of the season on the power play to put the Penguins ahead 2-1.

Devils would pull Kinkaid with a minute to go, but the Penguins and Mannino closed the door.

Three Stars: 3) Mike Sislo (goal, evn) 2) Brendan Mikkelson (goal, +1) 1) Tom Kostopoulos (goal, even)

Around the Division: Binghamton loses 1-0 in St. John’s and are swept by the IceCaps this weekend. The Norfolk Admirals sweep the best team in the AHL with another win vs. the Monarchs tonight, 4-1. The Hershey Bears lose to the Charlotte Checkers 4-1 and have all of a sudden lost five in a row. Syracuse was up 4-1 and need overtime to defeat the Adirondack Phantoms 5-4.

Other Game of Interest: Worcester ends its seven game losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. who see their seven game winning steak end.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 70 — Penguins 67 — Hershey 65 — Syracuse 53

Conference: 1) MCH (80) 2) SPR (72) 3) BNG (70)  4) STJ (72) 5) NOR (70) 6) WBS (67) 7) PRO (67) 8) ALB (66)

Wheeling Update: Nailers were in Reading tonight and lost 4-1. Eric Hartzell backed up tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: No where to be located. Don’t hold your breath.

Penguins off till next weekend. So tomorrow, I’ll be keeping tabs on Utica @ Bridgeport, Albany @ Providence and Charlotte @ Hershey. You should probably follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already for the results of these games and where the Penguins wash out in the Conference Sunday night.

Other than that, come back Monday afternoon for the Week 22 AHL Power Rankings which’ll debut at 4 p.m.

Let’s Go Pens!!!

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Really don’t know what to make of this one.

Syracuse has won three straight. They beat Hershey Saturday night in Hershey 5-0. Then the next night in Washington D.C. they beat the Bears again 5-2. Then they respond tonight, at home with a 4-0 shutout of the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins. They have outscored their opponents 14-2 in three games.

Are the Crunch making a push out of the East Division basement? May be too early to tell. I think tonight was more about Crunch goaltender Anders Lindback, down from parent Tampa Bay on conditioning, who pitched a 30 save shutout tonight and helped the Crunch to the win tonight.

There were moves today for the Penguins. As expected, Eric Hartzell was sent to Wheeling this morning and Peter Mannino was recalled. Then this afternoon, Tom Kuhnhackl and Anton Zlobin were sent to Wheeling also.

That left D Barry Goers as the only healthy scratch for the Penguins tonight. He is out for the weekend attending to a family matter. Harrison Ruopp was in for the Pens tonight as the 6th defenseman.

Jeff Deslauriers vs. the aforementioned Anders Lindback

First Period: Tanner Richard scored on the first shot of the game for the Crunch as he skated in from the blue line and beat Deslauriers for an early 1-0 Crunch lead. Penguins pretty much dominate the period, but Matt Taormina scores in the final minute to put the Crunch up 2-0.

That play was offsides:

Second Period: Matt Taormina scores again to put the Crunch up 3-0 and this ended Deslauriers night. Peter Mannino would out in his first work for Wilkes-Barre since November 8.

He’d promptly get scored on by Drew Olsen. It was 4-0 Crunch.

Then a boffo moment. Lindback misplays a puck in back of his net and inadvertently passes to Jayson Megna. Megna gathers himself and shoots, but Lindback makes it back in net in time to rob him to keep the Penguins off the board and preserve his shutout. That gaffe right there was probably the Penguins best chance at a goal tonight.

Third Period: Teams trade power plays. Nothing of either. Back and forth period with the Crunch outshooting the Penguins 11-8. Credit Syracuse for not letting off. No one would score though.

Three Stars: 3) Dana Tyrell (assist, +2) 2) Matt Taormina (two goals, +2) and 1) Anders Lindback (30 save shutout)

Around the Division: Binghamton lost up on The Rock to St. John’s 6-2. Hershey lost in a shootout 2-1 to the Hartford Wolf Pack and the Norfolk Admirals beat the best team in the AHL in the Manchester Monarchs by a score of 3-2.

Other Game of Relevance: The Bridgeport Sound Tigers win their seventh in a row with a 4-2 over the Providence Bruins. The Sound Tigers are making a push out of the 10th spot in the Eastern Conference to make it into the top 8. Right now, the playoff picture is 9 teams for 8 spots. Bridgeport wants to and probably will make it 10 for 8 really soon.

The AHL put out the Playoff Primer today, so if you have been saying it’s too early for me to be thinking about playoffs, think again. The Penguins magic number coming into the weekend was 43.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Norfolk 68 — Hershey 65 — Penguins 65 — Syracuse 51

Conference: 1) MCH (80) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (70) 5) NOR (68) 6) ALB (66) 7) HER (65) 8) WBS (65) 9) PRO (65) 10) BRI (55)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers were in Elmira tonight and were down 4-0. They score five goals in 14:58 and end up beating the Jackals by a score of 6-4. Eric Hartzell picked up the win. Anton Zlobin had a goal and an assist. Cody Sylvester had two goals.

SendToNews Highlights: Are not up yet. I will check again.

Penguins probably are bussing to Atlantic City tonight for their 5 p.m. start time with the rested Devils tomorrow in an important game for both. I’ll have the Gameday setup here on the blog at 1 p.m. tomorrow.

Let’s Go Pens!

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Teams on long losing streaks inevitably always find ways to win games. It always happens. The subsequent win always is an ugly one.

Tonight, the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins were involved in a seven goal third period and manage to eke by the now sliding Hershey Bears, losers of three straight by a final score of 6-5.

Eric Hartzell started this game in goal for the Penguins. He did not finish it. Ironically, he received his January Goaltender of the Month Award by the Pens executives. Feburary has been nothing short of a disaster for the rookie goaltender, who doesn’t seem to be exuding any type of confidence whatsoever. I would not be surprised to see him sent to Wheeling to slow down the game again for him, and a recall of Peter Mannino.

But I don’t coach the team, I just blog about it.

Hartzell was opposed by David Leggio. Barry Goers and Denver Manderson, both up from Wheeling, were in for the recalled to Pittsburgh Simon Despres and Brian Gibbons.

First Period: Tale of two periods for the Penguins. Come out gangbuster, Mike Carman finishes a behind the net pass from Bobby Farnham to put the Pens on the board 1-0.

Then, the Pens start taking penalties. Pierre Leblond on a goaltender interference call. Dane Byers gets a piece of a deflected puck past Hartzell and its a 1-1 game.

Spencer Machacek trip. Pens kill it, but a second later Casey Wellman rips one past Hartzell for a 2-1 Bears lead.

Here’s how bad the situation was for Hartzell: One save on three shots. Three.
Here’s how bad the situation was for the Penguins in whole: They dominate the period, and kill all momentum by taking avoidable penalties.

It seemed like the Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lacked swagger.

Second Period: Okay. Back to basics. Penguins cycled the puck and possessed it for a large part of the period. Bobby Farnham scores on a rebound of a Pierre Leblond shot to make it even again 2-2. Control the pace, dominate on defense. Limit chances. It was exactly what was needed and the Pens outshot the Bears 14-4 in the period and the score was 2-2 heading into the…

Third Period: Dane Byers. :28 in. Whips a shot past Hartzell.

All goaltenders get scored on. Name one who has never been. When they do, it doesn’t look like they just let in the game winning goal in game seven of a quadruple overtime game. It looked like it on Hartzell tonight.

Little did he or anyone else know that this Byers goal would be a preview of coming attractions.

Three straight goals by Wilkes-Barre. Brendan Mikkelson shorthanded laser beam to tie it at three again. Then, Dustin Gazley clips Mike Carman with a high stick and draws blood. A 4:00 power play to the Penguins, who waste no time because :43 later, the Pens tack on two more goals and its a 5-3 Wilkes-Barre lead.

The Hershey Bears would have none of it.

Jeff Taffe. Snaps a shot that Hartzell gets some of, but not all. What he didn’t ended up in the net.

Hynes said enough. Enter Jeff Deslauriers. Hartzell to this point stopped 12 of 16. He has looked shaky all night and Hershey still had 9:59 left to work with to get the fifth and sixth goals.

They only got the fifth. But not before the Pens found their sixth, a Spencer Machacek boomer to put the Pens up two again.

Nic Deschamps for the visitors. 6-5 Penguins.

After a goal extravaganza, Pens calmed down and defended the lead. They get a penalty kill and keep Hershey from scoring with the extra attacker and hold on.

Probably the easiest three save win in Jeff Deslauriers career. He was the goaltender of record tonight and will pick up the win.

Three Stars: 3) Dane Byers (two goals, even) 2) Andrew Ebbett (goal, two assists) 1) Spencer Machacek (two goals, -2)

Around the Division: They all watched us.

Standings: Pens lose six straight but still trail Binghamton by five points and sit in second: Binghamton 70 — Penguins 65 — Norfolk 64 — Hershey 64 — Syracuse 49

Conference: 1) MCH (80) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (68) 5) ALB (66) 6) WBS (65) 7) PRO (65) 8) NOR (64)

Wheeling Update: The Nailers did not play tonight.

SendToNews Highlights: Here they are.

Pens now off until Friday. Binghamton plays Toronto tomorrow and Norfolk plays Charlotte. Other than that, everyone is back Friday.

Content wise, I will have a photo blog of the Penguins Hall of Fame probably sometime tomorrow which I will run here as a buffer between tonights game and Friday’s one in Syracuse. Check back then.

Let’s Go Pens!!

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Looked like they almost had it, didn’t they?

The Wilkes-Barre / Scranton Penguins lose again, this their sixth loss in a row, this time 4-3 in a shootout to the Providence Bruins.

The Penguins losses in this streak have gone like this:

— A 4-3 OTL to Hershey February 9 (acceptable)
— A 6-2 loss to the Binghamton Senators (unacceptable)
— A 5-4 loss to the Hershey Bears (unacceptable)
— A 3-1 loss to the Hershey Bears (acceptable)
— A 4-3 OTL to the Binghamton Senators (acceptable)
— A 4-3 SOL to the Providence Bruins (acceptable)

The 5-4 loss to the Bears was unacceptable because the final score did not indicate the actual result. The 3-1 loss to the Bears the next night was acceptable because compared to the the prior two, it could have and should have been a lot worse.

So two unacceptable losses out of a possible six. Three points out of twelve. Right now, back in playoffs. Okay, I’ll take it.

Look, all teams in the AHL go through losing streaks. All of them. I know this because I pay attention to all other 29 teams. This just doesn’t happen to the Penguins. It’s great coaching, great defense and great goaltending with timely scoring that helps the team win. When it doesn’t they lose. When you get in a losing streak it’s hard to get out of, tonight being no different.

Or, it could be quality of opponent. No other AHL team has scored more goals than the Binghamton Senators. The Hershey Bears are a resurgent group. The Providence Bruins are a hell of a hockey team. The Penguins were in all of these last six games except for two. Hey, it happens.

The Pens inducted Kevin Blaum, Alain Nasreddine and Dennis Bonvie into their inaugural Hall of Fame class tonight. I will probably do a picture blog of all the horrible pictures I took on my phone later in the week. Pens brass tells me that there will be a display present at the Arena at some point, as early as Tuesday likely and when it is, I’ll have pictures of that for the blog piece.

Jeff Deslauriers opposed Niklas Svedberg.

First Period: Pens really step on the gas to open and don’t allow the Bruins a shot on goal for a good 12+ minutes. Jayson Megna does his best Trevor Smith impersonation from Game 6 of the Conference Semifinals last year and scores on a wraparound to put the Pens ahead 1-0. It was eerily similar to the shot that Smith scored on to force a Game 7 last year.

Second Period: Pierre Leblond and Bobby Robins fought in a spirited battle, with Leblond splitting Robins’ forehead open with a punch. Robins is as tough a customer as they come for the Bruins.

Then, Brian Gibbons gets called for a slash. Seven seconds later Providence ties it on a nifty cross ice finish by Craig Cunningham who roofed it over the pad of Deslauriers for a tie game.

Later, Nick Drazenovic pumps a puck in from center red on a routine dump and chase play that Penguins fans have seen a million times. Only this time, the puck hits the zamboni door and pops right in front of Spencer Machacek who has a wide open net to shoot into top put the Pens back ahead 2-1. Svedberg had left the net to play the puck and got burned by doing so.

Late, puck goes in off of Philip Samuelsson’s skate to make it a 2-2 game again.

Third Period: Bad D zone coverage by the Bruins, Spencer Machacek scores his second of the night to make it 3-2 Pens.

Then Providence took the game over. The Pens only had two shots on goal this entire period.

Justin Florek bar down and in for a tie game at three.

Then, later, Bruins score. Clearly, off of a face-off win. Linesman Leo Boylan, who handled the face-off, tells refs Trevor Hanson and Nic Leduc that the puck bounced off of a glove to the favor of the Bruins, and the goal was disallowed.

Huuuuuge break for the Pens, who then have to kill a Samuelsson delay of game penalty and do to force….

Overtime: Pens don’t allow the Bruins a shot but don’t score on the two that Svedberg saved, so it was onto….

Shootout: Craig Cunningham (34pts.), Alexander Khokhlachev (34 pts.) Ryan Spooner (25 pts.) scored for the P-Bruins in the shootout. Jared Knight (15 pts.) did not. Harry Zolnierczyk (29 pts.) Andrew Ebbett (19 pts.) Nick Drazenovic (31 pts.) Tom Kostopoulos (37 pts.) and Jayson Megna (11 pts.) went for the Pens in the shootout. Only Ebbett and Drazenovic scored for the Penguins.

What I am trying to point out is that the P-Bruins were DEEP when it came to who they chose to take the shootout chances. Point scorers. Granted, everybody but Kostopoulos has NHL time for the Pens, no one with less than 25 AHL points failed to score in the shootout for the visitors.

Three Stars: 3) Jayson Megna (goal, +1) 2) Spencer Machacek (two goals, +2) and 1) Ryan Spooner (shootout game winning goal, assist, even)

Around the Division: Nice night for the Pens really, as Binghamton lost to Utica 3-2, Norfolk lost to Albany 4-1 and Hershey gets shutout and sees their 12 game home winning streak end to the Syracuse Crunch 5-0.

Standings: Binghamton 70 — Hershey 64 — Penguins 63 — Norfolk 62 — Syracuse 47

Conference: 1) MCH (78) 2) SPR (71) 3) BNG (70) 4) STJ (66) 5) PRO (65) 6) HER (64) 7) ALB (64) 8) WBS (63)

Ten games on the schedule tomorrow. Albany, Providence, Norfolk, St. John’s and Hershey all in action tomorrow so it’ll be another Sunday of scoreboard watching and a blog update after of where the idle Penguins shake out in all of the games. Basically, you want all of the teams I just listed to lose.

Wheeling Update: Nailers beat the Elmira Jackals in New York tonight 3-1. Denver Manderson and Cody Sylvester scored goals for the Nailers in the win.

SendToNews Highlights: Huh. It’s 11:51 p.m. on a Saturday as I type right now. They aren’t up yet. I would’ve sworn they would have been.

Anyway, check back tomorrow to see how the teams around the Pens did. Also check out the Week 21 AHL Power Rankings Monday at 4 p.m. too.

Let’s Go Pens!!!